Highpoints

Description

A 3,500 mile walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End via the highest point of every county

Reviews:
“In the Prologue to this dazzling, formidable journey on foot across the UK via county tops, Victoria Morris remarks: ‘From the time I caught up with reality, I have been completing a mental farewell tour, realising one by one that my childhood ideals no longer exist and saying goodbye to them.’ But this memoir, this homage to landcsape is proof that we can recreate those ideals through the paths we forge, inhabit them fully through writing. Like Nan Shepherd, Morris immerses herself in the hills, staying ‘respectfully on the same side as the weather’, biding her time as ‘the landscape aches past’. She writes as poignantly about power lines as she does about the blush of exposed granite. Her journal is witty, frank and inspiring, alive to the ways that walking changes noticing: how ‘common occurrences become omens’, horizons shift, the ground’s personality alters. Morris started her long walks as a way to fill the ‘mountain-shaped hole’ in her life at university. This book will fill the mountain-shaped hole in your imagination.” – Helen Mort, poet and author of Lake District Trail Running

“Finding the extraordinary in the apparently ordinary, Highpoints reaffirms the joy of adventure – and of simply putting one foot in front of the other. While Victoria Morris touches every corner of Britain, she also finds the freedom we all crave.” – Jonny Muir, author of Heights of Madness

“A heart-warming account of an unconventional journey most walkers could only dream to embark upon; Highpoints captures the wonder of our wild places, and revives the childhood freedom of adventure within us all.”
Alex Staniforth, record-breaking adventurer, motivational speaker, author or Another Peak and co-founder of Mind Over Mountains

READER REVIEW
This is a really lovely book: a compelling read that reveals fresh delights on every page. The elegant writing style draws in the reader with some of the deftly turned phrases in the descriptive passages being nothing less than poetry in prose. There is much here that will raise a smile without detracting from the seriously informative aspects of the narrative, which describes an astonishing feat of endurance in pursuit of personal fulfilment. Her sly wit is also balanced by some introspective passages of searingly honest and insightful self-discovery. This aspect of the book doesn’t make for heavy reading though; it is so thought-provoking you will find yourself wondering what makes you tick as well. In addition to all this we gain the benefit of her all-seeing eye for both nature and the marks of human influences, bringing to our attention all the interesting things we tend to miss when we are out walking.
In devising this venture Victoria has set a new level of challenge for anyone who dares follow in her footsteps. She spent eight months walking from John O’Groats to Land’s End. “Eight months? What kept her?” You may be thinking. It took that long because instead of using what we might call the ‘tourist route’ she criss-crossed the country enough times to enable her to climb the highest point in every county of mainland Britain. At no point in the eight months did she allow herself to use any form of transport other than her feet. This meant covering three-and-a-half thousand miles of often gruelling gradients in harsh weather conditions and wearing out seven pairs of walking boots in the process. The only way I could follow this feat was by reading about it in the book, which is perhaps the safest option for most of us to adopt.
I can’t recommend this book too strongly and urge you to buy your own copy rather than borrow one because the profits are going to such a good cause: Mental Health Research UK.
Ray Black, Harrogate.

About the Author:

VICTORIA MORRIS is an experienced mountaineer and long-distance walker. She has completed rounds of the Munros and Lakeland fells, as well as climbing notable peaks in the Arctic, Alps and Andes.
Born and brought up in the north west of England, Victoria now lives in North Yorkshire with her husband. She is a Chartered Librarian, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and in her spare time plays fiddle in a ceilidh band.